e of University life in our own day, that the disturbances were
confined, in the main, to the wilder spirits, though it may well be that
occasionally peaceable persons were sucked into the vortex by the
accident of their being abroad at the time, and on the scene of the
affray, where their pacific character would receive scant consideration
from the angry combatants. Esprit de corps also was a powerful incentive
to action, and one from which even Masters were not exempt. To this must
be added that the course of study itself seemed expressly devised to
foster the belligerent temper. The air was laden with the breath of
strife, as the Cambridge term "wrangler," which has survived to our day,
plainly testifies.

THE HIGHWAY OF LEARNING

Let us follow the "poor boy," a technical expression at Oxford, through
the stages of his academic career in that University. At the outset two
courses were open to his parents or guardians: either he might be sent
to a religious foundation like Durham College, where he would be under
no obligation to take vows, but an oath would be required of him to
honour the monks and assist the electing Church, to whatever station of
life it might please God to call him. Or, as was infinitely more usual,
he might be settled in a secular school of grammar in charge of a
recognized master.

Before the rise of colleges, the vast majority of scholars resided in
halls, some of which were kept by laymen. In 1421 the King, incensed at
the constant breaches of the peace, commanded that all scholars and
their servants should be under the governance of some sufficient
principal approved by the Chancellor and Proctors, and should not be
suffered to abide in laymen's houses. In 1432 a statute set forth that,
whereas the principals of halls, fearing to lose their profits, did not
punish the members of their societies, still less did they dismiss them,
when it was their duty to do so; nay, even provoked disturbances--the
consequence, it was believed, of illiterate persons and non-graduates
keeping halls--it was ordained that henceforth all principals and their
deputies must be graduates. In the preamble of another statute of the
same date it was complained that grave crimes were committed by
so-called scholars, who, _nefando nomine_ "chamberdekenys," lived in no
hall, but slept away their days, and passed their nights in riot and
debauchery, crime and violence. This irregularity it was found difficult
to suppress